


Death Waits for the Slightest Lapse in Concentration

by Bobsled_Hostage



Category: Darkest Dungeon
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Vaginal Fingering, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 18:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3299219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobsled_Hostage/pseuds/Bobsled_Hostage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Plague Doctor attempts to blow off some steam and recover a little stress</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Смерть Ожидает Малейшего Падения Концентрации (Death Waits for the Slightest Lapse in Concentration by Bobsled_Hostage)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7885264) by [Mr_Scapegrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Scapegrace/pseuds/Mr_Scapegrace)



> Based on the following /vg/ post
> 
> >Have useless Plague Doctor with Fearful  
> >Cries and screams all the time  
> >Gets abused CONSTANTLY by the Abusive Vestal  
> >Plague Doctor is also banned from the brothel  
> >Probably from crying all the time as she fucks up and Vestal screams at her

Reynauld and Dismas led the way on your first expedition into the warrens, shooting, slabbing, slashing and bludgeoning everything in their path while you and Mathan brought up the rear, tending to their injuries or applying your expertise the various curios the antediluvian sewer tunnels held.  The vestal made it quite clear that she didn’t like you, that your constant muttering, whimpering and talking to yourself were at best irritants, at worst worthy of cuffs that made your head spin.  When you made camp to recuperate she sat opposite the fire and nursed a series of gashes one of the swine left her with, murmuring darkly.  When you came close to get a look at the cuts she backhanded you to the ground and started kicking you, shouting and cursing.  Dismas managed to haul her off you and you spent the night hiding in a nearby drainpipe, waking up every few minutes to splashes of running water and wet snuffling sounds echoing in the tunnels beyond.  Your attempts to eat breakfast away from the others the following morning were cut short by a hog-man’s attempts to force itself on you, squealing and gibbering and howling and trying to slash you with the barbed hook grafted to the ruined stump of its arm.  By the time you retrieved your bootknife it had forced you to the ground and was attempting to bring the wicked instrument of butchery to bear.  You frantically stabbed and stabbed, trying to thrust through the gaps in the steel mesh around its face, until Reynauld arrived to knock it away from you and put it to the sword.

You arrived back at the hamlet with your robes still soaked with blood and vomit and all manner of other grime.  Mathan had berated you again for being foolish enough to wander off, for how useless you had been, at which you could only cringe and say nothing, unwilling to lift your mask in public and wipe away your tears.  When she saw your wretched state, Mowbray had laughed and slapped you on the back, almost knocking you to the ground, and told you there wasn’t any disease of the body or mind a hot bath and a good lay couldn’t cure.  You wished you could be like Mowbray, showing off her woad-painted skin as though she wasn’t afraid of anyone seeing her face.  When she practically dragged you into the brothel and demanded that someone show her friend (she called you her _friend_ ) a good time, the pudgy procuress had smiled and said it could be arranged.

Your companion-to-be for the night was a stripling who couldn’t have been older than twenty, with strong arms and soft eyes, smiling and trying to make you feel at home.  When you asked if you could leave your clothes on he nodded, but when he went to lift up your skirt your hand twitched, and suddenly he was clutching at his face and calling for the guards (you weren’t trying to cut him you weren’t trying to cut him you just feel _safer_ when you _have your knife in your hand_ ), and in no time at all the hired brutes ejected you from the premises.

That had earned you a ban from the tavern entirely.  You didn’t even normally drink, you liked to sit and listen to the Hellion’s boasts, watch the Jester’s capering, doze off by the fire with the smell of woodsmoke and hot food mixing with the herbs in the snout of your mask.  With these particular avenues of escape closed off, your options were severely limited.  Meditation was of no help, being alone with nothing but your thoughts was absolutely the last thing you wanted.  Prayer was out of the question as well, the thought of a higher power watching your every move, weighing out your deeds and assigning punishment made your skin crawl beneath your reeking robes.  There appeared to be only one alternative, the one you remembered so well from your youth.  

“When the mind overflows with dark thoughts, find solace in the scourge.”  Despite the words of the proverb, you’ve never done this to yourself.  At the convent one of the sisters would wield the birch, or one of the other children.  Given the choice, most of you preferred to be on the receiving end, better to kneel in penance and endure a flogging then deliver one to another crying novice.  The first thing you do is make sure no one else is using the hall of penance.  The thought of someone seeing you undressed is almost enough to forestall your attempts at absolution, but you swallow your gorge and press onward, counting on your fellow adventurers to occupy themselves in the warmth of tavern rather than the chilly, austere halls of the abbey.  This whip is braided leather, quite unlike the rods of your childhood, but the principle and application should be much the same.  You undo the fastening of your robe and let it pool around your waist, pulling the filthy tunic over your head and off.  Holding your breath against miasma, you briefly lift your mask to slip the wooden gag between your teeth, scrunching your eyes shut against the light until the beak and goggles are safely sealed over your face again.  Finally you undo the bindings around your chest and kneel, bare breasted, your skin goosepimpled despite the warmth of the room.  

The heavy, braided leather bites into your back with every swing, rending skin and flesh alike, bringing pain and an almost palpable sense of relief.  You clench your teeth and sob with agonized release as you slash away at yourself, pausing only to breathe and ruminate on the raw, ragged ache the knotted cords leave you with.  It’s on the seventh stroke that it goes wrong.  Your striking arm won’t lift.  The sense of release you seek disappears when you realize you may have severed something important.  The wound squirts blood in time with your pulse and shocks of intense pain, the inner workings of your skin and muscles are exposed to the open air.  In your panic any attempts to control your breathing fly out the window, you twist and writhe on the floor, drooling around the gag in your attempts to shriek for help.  If you don’t get it out of your mouth there’s a chance you could choke, but when you reach around to pull off your mask the shredded muscles on your back send you into spasms.  The tiles are slick with your blood. Bawling in agony you begin to hyperventilate, and from there the combination of irregular breathing and excruciating pain sends you into unconsciousness.

Hideous visages torment you even beyond wakefulness.  You dream of unnameable things squirming in inky pools, fungal tumors growing plump on your bodily fluids, the sound and stench of boiling tallow and sizzling human fat.

You wake up with a strangled cry, halfway through a nightmare about bandits holding you down and flensing you alive.  You’re drenched with sweat, your throat is raw from screaming, your back is on fire and the sunlight streaming through the window is bright enough to sear your eyes.  With a shock you realize you aren’t seeing it through the tinted lenses of your mask.  You aren’t wearing your mask, and Mathan is sitting across from you, thumbing through some holy text.  She saw your face.  She can _see your face._  With a panicked shriek you bury yourself under the blankets, trying to make yourself as small as possible.  Attempting to curl up sends an almost blinding pain through your shredded back, when the vestal tears the sheets from over you there isn’t much you can do but shield your eyes and cringe at the torrent of abuse she unleashes.  She shouts at you for almost getting yourself killed and leaving your worthless corpse in the penance hall, which you’d clearly stay out of if you knew what was fucking good for you, and if it wasn’t for her godsdamned vows she could have left you out there and now she’ll have to burn all the bedclothes because you’ve clearly never bathed in your life.  When you try to pull the blankets over your head she yanks them back and slaps you, then asks what kind of useless doctor goes weeks and weeks without bathing or even washing your clothes, she’ll probably have to torch those too.  The thought of your mask going up in flames brings fresh tears to your eyes as she ruminates on all manner of parasites, skin diseases and fungal infections you probably have.  By the time she finishes describing in gruesome detail the scrubbing she’s going to make sure you get, your sobs have subsided to whimpers.  She says if she catches you picking at your stitches she’ll give you a pummeling to make your wounds seem tame by comparison.

Before Mathan leaves, she turns and tells you to ask her next time you need sense flogged into you, at which you stiffen, then nod meekly.  You ask quietly if you can have your mask back and she makes an obscene hand gesture before slamming the door.  As you sink into the blankets, closing your eyes and imagining her strong arms deftly wielding the lash against your bare, tender skin, you shiver with fear and anticipation.


	2. Mortality Clarified in a Single Strike

The moment she deemed you fit to stand, Mathan yanked you out of bed and marched you, under threat of a beating, to the vestibule, where you found a brass tub of hot water waiting for you.  It nearly scalded you when you tested it with your finger, but no sooner did you attempt to shy away than the vestal grabbed you bodily by the waist and tipped you in.  While you shrieked at the shock she held out a rough cloth and a chunk of lye soap, informing you that she’d be back soon to scrub you down if you were too incompetent to do it yourself.  Your perfunctory efforts at cleaning the grime, grease and effluent off your rapidly pinkening skin were obviously unsatisfactory.  On her return she began by savagely ducking your head beneath the water, before grabbing the cloth and vigorously scrubbing every inch of your body while you squirmed and whimpered.  When she got to your back you cried out in pain and tried to get away.  She held you down, snarling that you needed to keep the wounds clean and it would hurt a lot worse if it started to fester, how fucking stupid were you that you’re a doctor and you didn’t know that.  When she pronounced you clean she half helped, half lifted you out of the then murky water, pushing you into a chair and shaving your head with shears and a razor, grumbling about lice and despairing at your greasy mop of hair.  When she was finished you sat bald, shivering and miserable until she returned with a towel and fresh clothes.  A tunic, drawers and breeches, but nothing to cover your face, you asked her what would keep the miasma out and she looked ready to hit you again.  You decided to wait on asking for your mask back.

You spent your period of convalescence eating, reading and sleeping fitfully, dreaming of rooms filled with sharp things, wasting diseases and dark oceans filled with toothy maws.  Nobody told you to come out on expeditions or even seemed aware you were still in the hamlet, aside from Mathan who occasionally visited to shout at you and make sure your back wasn’t getting any worse.  When you worked up the courage to wonder out loud if Mowbray had asked about you, the vestal scowled and snapped that nobody had seen the blue barbarian bitch since she stumbled into the woods after a night of drunken carousing a week ago.  You spent the rest of the afternoon sitting alone in the vestibule, fiddling with your ingredients.  A day later the surly priestess pronounced you healthy enough and evicted you from the abbey.

You spent several days agonizing over how to approach her, wondering if the offer in her chambers had been genuine, if asking her about it would just make her angry and earn you an earful, and possibly a fist to the stomach.  In the end the problem solved itself.  A number of your neighbors complained about the horrible screams coming from your bedroom on a nightly basis, and one evening the vestal showed up at your door, pulled you out of your hiding place and dragged you to the abbey, cursing all the way.

 

The rope around your wrists holds your arms vertical, looped through an iron ring in the ceiling for just such a purpose.  If you keep your legs straight your toes touch the floor, you can just about stand rather than dangling, clad only in a ragged pair of trousers and feeling naked, exposed and dirty.  There’s a chance you’ll panic and start thrashing to get away if it doesn’t start soon.  

As if on cue the door opens behind you.  The sound of bare feet padding across the tile grows nearer.  The footsteps stop within arm’s reach, you shiver and breathe slowly through your nose to avoid slobbering around the gag stuffed in your mouth.  You think about turning around, about begging to be let down, about promising you’ll be quiet or just sleep somewhere else where you won’t bother anyone.  You open your mouth to form a word and nine rawhide thongs slash your back, turning the beginnings of a phoneme into a strangled cry.  It may not leave the gashes like your abortive attempt at flagellation, but the welts the flogger leaves hurt just as much.  You twist helplessly as Mathan works you over, paying equal attention to your shoulders, upper and lower back.  She times the blows expertly, keeping you at a constant crest of pain.  With every strike you howl in agony and feel tension leaving your bruised, aching body.

Your tormentor stalks around to your front.  Sleeves rolled up, hood tossed back, slapping the tails of the whip against the palm of her hand, the look on the vestal’s face sends shivers through your abused frame.  When you turn your face to the floor she grabs you by the jaw and forces you to look her in the eye, before stepping back and lashing you across your breasts.  You shriek around the gag, eyes bulging, trying to form words, begging her not to hit you there, pulling your knees up in a feeble attempt to protect your chest.  She swings again, making sure the rawhide strips slap your tender nipples, and you almost pass out.  You’re babbling now, pleading with her to let you down, you’ve learned your lesson, please stop hitting you you’ve had enough.  It all comes out slurred and incoherent.  If she understands you she doesn’t let up, at least not until she notices you’ve been pressing your thighs together the entire time.

Mathan permits herself a sharp, humorless chuckle, dropping the well-used whip to the floor.  She cinches one arm around your waist to keep you from shying away, as if you could go anywhere dangling as you are, and slips one hand down your trousers to press against the lips of your sopping wet cunt.  She leaves them there, watching you squirm, before beginning to rub with her fingers, pushing a calloused thumb over your clitoral hood and hissing that of course this is what you were after the whole time, useless bitch.  For a moment she’s content to watch you squirm and whimper, but soon enough she has two fingers shoved inside you, curling upwards, pressing against the spot that makes you clamp your legs around her and keen with need.  What a worthless whore you are, she says, this is what you were good for the whole time, forget bringing you out on expeditions, she’ll keep you tied here and bring everyone down to fuck you.  They’ll all see you without your mask and if you fucking hate bathing so much you won’t ever have to wash their seed off after they’ve pumped you full of it, one after the other, you can spend the rest of your life servicing your betters until your holes get so worn out they dump you in the woods for the bandits and the beasts to have a turn with.  You twist and moan in fear, panic and lust, she gives up whispering filthy things in your ear and bites down on your shoulder.  The sensation of teeth sinking into your flesh strikes like a lightning bolt of pain through the fog of your arousal, your eyes white out and you cum so hard it hurts.

As you come to she’s slipping the gag out of your mouth and replacing it with her fingers, which she forces between your lips.  You obediently suck them clean in between ragged sobs, until she removes them and wipes her hands on your thoroughly soaked trousers.  You’re sticky, wet, sore everywhere and all you want to do is stumble to bed and pass out, but the way she looks at you it almost seems like she was serious, that she’s really going to leave you dangling here for everyone else to fuck.  Thankfully she only lets you stew for a moment before turning to undo the rope suspending you from the ceiling.  She lowers you to the floor, not gently but not simply dropping you either, before sitting to undo the knots binding you.  Your wrists are raw with rope burns that sting as you try to rub the sweat, tears and drool from your face.  On one hand, you really don’t feel like moving anywhere, but on the other hand the stone is cold and you’re already chilly enough without just lying there.  With a groan of pain you manage to push yourself into a sitting position, clutching your shoulders and looking at a spot on the floor.  When you glance up you find Mathan staring at you as if she expects something, you stutter a small thank you.  She sits back, lifts the hem of her robes, places a hand on your scalp and pushes your head down between her thighs.

 

That night your sleep is deep and totally dreamless.


	3. Gathered Close in Tenuous Firelight

Your search for relics and heirlooms in the basement of the old church had been cut short when the villagers slashed the ropes, trapping you in the pit.  The peasants struck up a raucous chanting, calling forth a piping, gibbering, crawling thing, from which you and your companions had fled into the warren of tunnels and catacombs.  Blade, bludgeon and black powder had proven powerless to halt it as it half rolled, half oozed down the passage after you.

As you round the corner you shout that with the right alchemical mixture, you might be able to neutralize the blob’s corrosive properties.  Dismas murmurs something about a better idea, draws his pistol and puts a ball through your kneecap.

You collapse in pain and shock, your companions abandoning you as a distraction for the sucking, amorphous mass.  You roll on your back, madly searching through your reagent pouches for something to ward the thing off, and then the squelching monstrosity is upon you.  Pseudopods envelop you, pulling off your mask, pushing into your eye sockets, breaking your jaw and forcing their way into your esophagus.  You scream and plead and cry out until your lungs fill with cytoplasm, bringing suffocation but not a merciful end to your life.  The thing slowly dissolves your skin and organs and genitals and face, all with you fully conscious and gasping mutely in agony.  You thrash and twist and beg silently for death until you wake up.

With a start you spasm, returning violently to consciousness.  Bed, room, tavern, hamlet, you realize after a few panicked moments that you’re safe, at least for now.  Heart hammering, you wrap your arms around yourself, shivering despite the thick furs piled under and over you and the warm body sharing them.  You turn and find Mowbray sprawled out next to you, naked as a beast in the wild, face soaked with drool.  Her hair is mussed as after vigorous physical exertion, and as you watch a spit bubble swell on her lip with her breathing, you remember what happened and cringe.

The hellion, upon returning from her drunken bender, had heard about your ban from the tavern, and had immediately bullied the innkeeper into readmitting you.  She subsequently bullied you into a night of drink and revelry, ordering pitcher after flagon after bottle, plying you until the room seemed like a safer, more welcoming place, until you laughed and smiled and leaned into her when she threw an arm around your shoulders and crooned in your ear.  From there it had been a short trip up to her room.

When you flinch at the memory your thighs ache, thoroughly bruised by vigorous tribadism with your muscular partner.  Your pussy throbs, sore from coming again and again.  How could you let her see you without your clothes, without your mask?   _Idiot_.  She’ll never want to talk to you again and you’ll probably get sick and then your nightmares of dissolving from the inside will become a reality.  Luckily your nocturnal shrieking doesn’t seem to have woken her up.  Maybe if you sneak out now she’ll forget the whole thing.

With a grunt, the hellion rolls on her side and slings a muscular arm around your waist, pulling you against her chest.  You whisper her name, halfheartedly trying to rouse her.  She mumbles something in her sleep and holds you closer.  Attempting to wriggle free earns you another squeeze, pulling you against her chest like something precious.  Head throbbing, you resign yourself and rest your face against her shoulder, hoping that this attempt at sleep will yield fewer night terrors than the last.


End file.
